December 9: Challenge #best09

Something that really made you grow this year. That made you go to your edge and then some. What made it the best challenge of the year for you?

One should rather die than be betrayed. There is no deceit in death. It delivers precisely what it has promised. Betrayal, though ... betrayal is the willful slaughter of hope.

~Steven Dietz~

By far the hardest thing I have faced this year has been the betrayal of someone I considered a good friend. To this day I have no idea what it was that made her turn against me. I will not deny it hurt. To some degree it still does. But what I do thank her for is that it made me take a good, long, hard look at elements of who I had become. And I did not like it. We all bitch, vent, moan at some point in our lives. We are all guilty of doing it about people we care about, be it family or friends. It is when it becomes a daily centre of your life that it is time to step back, take some control, stop.

I had travelled this path many moons before, and it had taken a year of backpacking for me to work out who I really was, why I had become that way and how I wished to be. There is no excuse. I could say I became caught up in the drama of it all, I could claim I was adrift after my closest friends here went travelling or moved, I could point the finger and childishly moan: "But she made me..." However, I am an adult and as such am responsible for the company I keep and the decisions I make.

So, you know who you are, if you are reading this:

Thank You!

I am working on being true to myself. I know I am loyal, supportive and a good person, even if I lost some of the fun and laughter for a while. I have now removed the toxicity which shrouded some of these things. And don't worry, no matter what you say to whomever, I will not betray you. It would be against my personal code of honour. The people who truly know me, love me, have accepted my apologies for my aberration, and most of all are happy to see the real me back. I wish for you the same.

Now, if I can just lesson the other stresses in my life I'll be flawless!

Not!